4400arithmetic - ARITHMETICAL FUNCTIONS I: MULTIPLICATIVE...

ARITHMETICAL FUNCTIONS I: MULTIPLICATIVE FUNCTIONS PETE L. CLARK 1. Arithmetical Functions Deﬁnition: An arithmetical function is a function f : Z + → C . Truth be told, this deﬁnition is a bit embarrassing. It would mean that taking any function from calculus whose domain contains [1 , + ∞ ) and restricting it to positive integer values, we get an arithmetical function. For instance, e-3 x cos 2 x +(17 log( x +1)) is an arithmetical function according to this deﬁnition, although it is, at best, dubious whether this function holds any signiﬁcance in number theory. If we were honest, the deﬁnition we would like to make is that an arithmetical function is a real or complex-valued function deﬁned for positive integer arguments which is of some arithmetic signiﬁcance , but of course this is not a formal deﬁnition at all. Probably it is best to give examples: Example A Ω: The prime counting function n 7→ π ( n ), the number of prime num-bers p , 1 ≤ p ≤ n . This is the example par excellence of an arithmetical function: approximately half of number theory is devoted to understanding its behavior. This function really deserves a whole unit all to itself, and it will get one: we put it aside for now and consider some other examples. Example 1: The function ω ( n ), which counts the number of distinct prime di-visors of n . Example 2: The function ϕ ( n ), which counts the number of integers k , 1 ≤ k ≤ n , with gcd( k,n ) = 1. Properly speaking this function is called the totient func-tion , but its fame inevitably precedes it and modern times it is usually called just “the phi function” or “Euler’s phi function.” Since a congruence class k modulo n is invertible in the ring Z /n Z iﬀ its representative k is relatively prime to n , an equivalent deﬁnition is ϕ ( n ) := #( Z /n Z ) × , the cardinality of the unit group of the ﬁnite ring Z /n Z . Example 3: The function n 7→ d ( n ), the number of positive divisors of n . 1

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